A Dramatic Remake Of ‘The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters’ On The Way

Seth Gordon has quickly made a name for himself in the world of film. He started as a cameraman for the documentary, Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing and eventually produced and edited the documentary, New York Doll, which was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize in documentary at Sundance Film Festival in 2005. But most people know him best for his feature directing debut with the 2009 hit documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Since he has kept busy directing a video series focusing on the threat posed by cybercrime to Internet users, H*Commerce: The Business of Hacking You. He’s also directed various music videos and commercials, as well as an episode each of Modern Family and Community, two episodes of The Office, and multiple episodes of Parks and Recreation.

But the man behind the cameras of this weekend’s Horrible Bosses can’t escape having people constantly asking about his debut feature even years after its release. The King of Kong remains his best directorial effort and now Gordon is considering making a dramatic remake of the video game showdown between Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe.

“I think it’s the thing that won’t ever die in a way because I think we all love the doc. And so we haven’t given up on it. And there’s a new draft by Melissa Stack who did a wonderful job. And so it’s quite real… There’s a few different avenues [the film can take]. I’ve done some work on Modern Family and The Office and have worked in this doc style, and so that inspired me to say, instead of doing a traditional narrative feature script, what if we did the remake in the doc style? What doors what that open? What opportunities? What additional story could we tell? And that’s essentially the approach we took.

It’s an interesting idea and given his work on the hit television shows mentioned above, I’m quite confident that he can pull it off. Gordon went on to say:

“But in terms of the story, it’s going to be a very similar story – about Wiebe losing his job, rediscovering Kong, thinking he’s the best in the world at something only to have it taken away by a guy who won’t let go of his title,” Gordon told FS. “We’re going to try, if we can, to really reference and use the documentary where possible. To me it’s about not compromising the original, if we can help it.